Something Wicked This Way Comes

We didn’t have time to absorb and deal with a mass killing, when too soon thereafter another followed. What is the answer, and what is to be done?

Last week I wrote about the massacre in Buffalo New York of 10 innocent people going about their usual shopping experiences in a local supermarket. They were victims of a deranged 18-year-old. When I composed that article, I did so with the hope that this would be another isolated incident that we would have to once again deal with socially, politically and emotionally. Had I known then what I know now, perhaps I would have waited a couple of weeks for the next mass shooting, and covered them both together; a double dose of sadness and death. 

The incidents of mass shootings have become, regrettably, something we have come to expect at times, but this is too soon, and too much. In his horror fantasy novel, “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” Ray Bradbury writes of a small town and an approaching evil. Something wicked arrived at the Dobbs Elementary School in Uvalde Texas, and once again lives are shattered and hearts broken, sounding familiar. But only this time, the fallen were the most precious and innocent among us, children, 19 of them and two of their teachers. They were in a classroom, learning, perhaps laughing, and anxious to finish the school year and get home to begin their summer vacation, which was to begin the following week.

On Thursday, May 26, I walked along the avenue and stopped off at the local variety store to purchase the daily newspaper. But that bright and sunny spring day was a poor harbinger of the sadness and melancholy of the moment, for what greeted me cast a dark shadow of gloom, a cover with photos of bright-eyed smiling faces of 19 ten-year-old victims of a heartless brutal killer. Makenna, Amerie, Xavier, Jayce, Jailah, Uziyzh, Nevaeh, Rojelio, Jackie, Annabell, Ellie, Alithia, Miranda, Maite, Tess, Jose, Eliahana, Alexandria, Layla, and their teachers Eva Mirelis, 44 years old, and Irma Garcia, 46 years old; these are the names of the innocent faces that looked up at me. 

They had gone to school that day, without any reason to believe they would never again see their loved ones. One can only imagine the horror these children and their teachers went through in those last terrifying moments of their lives. Now their devastated and heartbroken families must face life without their loved ones. All their hopes and dreams for the future diminished, gone, at the hands of a madman. 

Like the Buffalo killer, this senseless massacre was carried out by another 18-year-old, Salvador Ramos; (this will be the only time I use his name, from this point on I will use killer). His weapon of death was also an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, and he too wore body armor. Before the killer descended on the Robb Elementary School, he argued with his grandmother before shooting her in the face; thankfully she is expected to recover. It appears the killer came from a broken home, and lived with his grandparents.

On his way, the killer recklessly crashed his grandmother’s pickup truck into a parked vehicle just across from the school. As he got out of the truck he began firing at two individuals standing outside a funeral home. The killer walked the short distance and spent about ten minutes outside firing at the school. He walked around to the west side of the school and was able to enter unobstructed through an ‘unlocked door’ that should have been locked. According to reports, a teacher or another school employee stepped outside for some reason and neglected to lock the door upon returning.

About 15 minutes after the killer’s arrival, calls to the 911 emergency line were made and the school was placed on lockdown. The killer walked down the hallway and it appears he randomly chose and entered a classroom, where he barricaded himself in along with the students and teachers. According to survivors the killer’s first words when he entered the room were “It’s time to die,” after which he opened fire.

The killer remained barricaded in the classroom with the victims of his bloody rampage for about 50 minutes, until a Border Patrol Tactical Unit broke through the steel door and stormed in, and shot and killed him. In the aftermath of the deadly massacre there have been numerous press conferences, and officials have defended the police response that is now being questioned.

There have been accusations and calls for the firing of the Uvalde police for holding back and allowing too much time to elapse without storming the school. Parents were outside pleading with the police to storm the school and save their children, there were shouts of “What are you doing,” “Go protect the kids,” and “Get inside the building.” One mother became enraged and threatened to storm the school, but police stopped and restrained her. She managed to break free and rushed into the school, found her daughter, and both came out unharmed. 

Over the course of the weeks and months that follow, we should learn more about the Uvalde, Texas massacre. Republicans, Democrats, the media, gun rights advocates, and the National Rifle Association will talk and argue, and hopefully try to find a remedy for these senseless killings. They will discuss restrictions on guns, age limitations, mental health, and red flag laws, but they will not find the answers they are looking for, such as - cultural corruption, breakdown of the family, lack of religious faith, social media, on-line games, which is where both of these killers found their venues and proclaimed their deadly aspirations, and we can add the motion picture industry with its violence, sexual content, and death.

The families of the victims and the American people will mourn for the children and adults who never stood a chance against evil, and whose lives were taken much too soon. Their families will no longer embrace their loved ones, and all we can hope for is that they are now in the embrace of God.